ORANGE – An altercation between a bicyclist and another homeless man who was on foot along the Santa Ana River Trail left one dead early Friday, Feb. 23, and slowed down the effort to clear out the area of the homeless who had taken root and set up tents, tarps and other accommodations here, sheriff’s officials said.

This last swath of living quarters, one of several along the trail, had been scheduled to be cleared out by Friday, but around 3:30 a.m. sheriff’s deputies received a call about the fight and when they arrived found the two men in need of medical attention, sheriff’s Capt. Dave Sawyer said.

The man on foot was pronounced dead at a local hospital, Sawyer said. He had no obvious signs of trauma; a medical examiner was to further study the body.

In the investigation’s early phase, the pedestrian was suspected of assault with a deadly weapon, sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. There didn’t appear to be any witnesses other than the two men involved.

The men were found next to Chapman Avenue and a Motel 6. Deputies found a knife at the scene, Sawyer said, but it was unknown if it was used during the fight. Investigators interviewed the bicyclist at the hospital.

Authorities put up crime-scene tape along the trail, stretching 200 yards on both sides of Chapman. “We train our deputies to create a large crime scene,” said Sawyer, who is in charge of the Sheriff’s Department’s homeless outreach. “So nothing gets left out.”

Over the last few days, the Sheriff’s Department had been working, along with the Orange County Health Care Agency, to clear the riverbed of residents, personal items and debris and to provide vouchers for lodging accommodations.

At its height, between 500 and 1,000 people lived in a large homeless encampment between the I-5 freeway and Taft Avenue in Orange and Anaheim. But in the past week alone, county workers have moved 566 riverbed inhabitants to local motels in accordance with a lawsuit over the riverbed evictions.

As of Friday morning, only 100 or so people remained living along the flood-control channel.

The death occurred in one of the few remaining clusters of settlements. County healthcare workers and sheriff’s deputies were set to begin clearing that last segment just hours after the fight.

To keep moving forward on Friday, officials started relocating the homeless and their belongings that were outside of the official crime scene. Then they intended to work inside where the tape had been set up.

“We know this can be a dangerous area,” Sawyer said. “Just another day, and we would have had this whole place cleared, so it’s unfortunate.”

Friday evening, county officials said it was unclear how many homeless remained along the trail. Many tents in the southern stretch of the encampment remained untouched.

Chris Haire covers Long Beach City Hall for the Press-Telegram. He previously was a general assignment reporter for the Orange County Register, covering everything from spot news to human-interest features. He has been with the Register and Southern California News Group since December 2012. He graduated with honors from the Columbia University School of Journalism, with a master's degree. Chris also has a bachelor's degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and would like, one day, to get a doctorate in history. (He's kind of nerdy.) He also loves Russian literature, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Solzhenitsyn.

Jordan Graham covers congressional politics and county government for the Orange County Register. He began his career reporting freelance civic and watchdog journalism in his hometown of Chicago before moving westward in 2013. He has previously covered Irvine, the San Fernando Valley and Costa Mesa for the Register. He is a graduate of University of Illinois and Northwestern University. Please email or call him with news tips.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.